Protected by a SEAL (Alpha SEALs, Book 6) Read Online Free Page B

returning to Florida loomed in the back of her mind,
and she tried to brush it aside. Tried not to let it ruin her
evening. She might as well enjoy her time here. She never took
vacations, and this was as close as it was going to get to a real
vacation for her. Then she’d be back to college and work
and…Frank
    She shuddered.
    “Are you cold?” Matthew drawled, turning up
the heat in his pickup as he pulled onto the busy road leading down
the main strip of Virginia Beach. Pedestrians dashed between cars
as they stopped at a red light, and bass thumped from the stereo of
a passing car.
    “I’m fine,” Ella said.
    “Where did Brent disappear to?” Brianna
asked as she snuggled against Matthew. “He was alone at the bar
earlier and then vanished. He didn’t even have a woman with
him.”
    Matthew pulled off the main drag, avoiding
some of the traffic, and sped up as they headed toward the pool
hall. “He’s meeting us there,” Matthew said. “Took off on his
Harley. Mike and I were ribbing him for sitting there drinking
alone. Usually he’s got women around him like flies drawn to
honey.”
    “Tell me about it,” Brianna said.
    “He was watching Ella, earlier,” Matthew
said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry—I told him to stay away.”
    Ella glanced over at Matthew’s profile in
surprise and felt a strange warmth pooling inside. It was nice to
be the object of someone’s attention, she supposed. She pictured
Brent’s dark cropped hair and piercing blue eyes. According to
everyone else, the guy was a real womanizer, but she sensed
something else there beneath that façade. A sadness that she could
relate a little too well to. And a protectiveness that she found
comforting, despite his sometimes brash, arrogant demeanor. He’d
stood up for her, which she couldn’t say about a whole lot of other
people in her life. When she had no one aside from her friends on
her side, it had felt good to have a man she didn’t even know
literally step in front of her, shielding her from her boss’s angry
words.
    Too bad it didn’t mean anything in the long
run. Any of the guys on their SEAL team would stand up for someone
who needed help. Help a woman in trouble. It was practically
engrained in their DNA to serve and protect. One moment in the back
of a bar didn’t mean she suddenly had a man on her side.
    Not that she needed a man’s help.
    Or Brent.
    Ella was on her own, just like always. She’d
have to deal with her work situation with Frank by herself and
somehow figure out a way to make ends meet and finish her final
year of college. A guy like Brent who had a hotshot military career
and who’d been with countless other women would never have time to
worry about someone like her.

Chapter 3

    Brent eased off his Harley, stashing the
helmet and sauntering down the street to the pool hall. A car
honked, and a group of co-eds waved at him as they whizzed by. He
smirked and shook his head, continuing on his way. He might’ve
known one of them—hell, it was possible he knew them all. And also
just as likely they’d spotted a man in the military and just wanted
to grab his attention. Normally he relished that sort of thing.
Lived for female attention. Hell if he wasn’t off his game tonight.
He’d blown out of Anchors like the place was on fire and sped off
into the night without so much as a goodbye to his buddies. Nothing
felt better than the wind whipping by him as he raced through the
darkness with the moonlit sky above him and his Harley between his
legs.
    Well, bedding a woman was more exhilarating,
he thought with a smirk. And exactly why he usually took a new lady
home every night.
    Tonight he just didn’t have the patience for
that game though.
    Adrenaline coursed through his veins,
setting his every nerve ending on fire. After the brutal workout
today he should want to crash, but it had just the opposite effect.
He wanted more. Needed something to quell the burst of energy and
anger roaring through